Let There be Lighting: Great Lighting Design for Special Events

2010_Lighting_01

From LD Systems, the lighting components of this downtown Houston event include lasers, large-format skylights, searchlights and large-format projection. Pyrotechnics are launched from and large-format lighting is mounted on more than 84 buildings. Setup for this presentation takes three weeks and involves more than 220 helicopter lifts. Images are displayed on 26 surface areas of 18 buildings.

2010_Lighting_02

For the 2000 Creative Arts Emmy Awards post-party, ShowPro custom-designs chandeliers: sconces wrapped in taut, stretched white fabric. Using intelligent lighting controlled by a computer, the designers mix three light colors--cyan, magenta and yellow--to produce a variety of colors from the spectrum.

2010_Lighting_03

For the grand opening of a casino, Southwest Show Tech creates an animated 60-by-60-foot series of cultural images superimposed on the entrance, with supporting lighting effects that highlight more than 400 linear feet of adobe-colored architecture. As guests walk up to the casino entrance, they are greeted by a four-minute story created by lighting, image projection and sound-scaping that symbolizes important cultural elements.

2010_Lighting_04

As the producer of a headmaster's retirement party at a Connecticut private school, Big Wave International creates a day-to-night environment inside a dinner tent using intelligent lighting and rotating gobos. For an outdoor presentation, the company uses computerized lights to wash 15 campus buildings in primary colors. The evening's highlight is a 5-minute intelligent light show over a pond, which features illuminated spouts rising from the water accompanied by the harmonies of the entire student body.

To light the 166,000-square-foot expanse of the Louisiana Superdome for the Pow Wow Mardi Gras Extravaganza, Express Productions had to prepare 1,200 feet of lighting truss and 60 chain motors, and coordinate the 12 union riggers required to complete the setup.

At the opening general session for a multiple-day incentive program for client EDS, Designs by Sean uses Cyberlights, studio spots, track spots and Varilights to create the feel of a sunrise inside a ballroom at the St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point, Calif. For the program's black-tie awards gala, the production company uses 22 projectors to create seven different film scenes on the ceiling of the event's 200-by-82-foot tent.

Active Production & Design creates a futuristic set that showcases the company's lighting and special effects at a 10,000-attendee, multi-day youth conference. For the main stage, Active creates a custom projection screen using a Catalyst DL1 fixture with a circular truss and fitted spandex, while 40 intelligent lighting fixtures light up the stage; a digital video lighting projector creates a customized, high-energy light show that highlights the event's speakers and entertainment.

For a company's holiday party, Infinite Designs creates lighting effects that give the appearance of an outdoor celebration on the streets of New York. Around the perimeter of the exhibition hall venue, intelligent lighting fixtures turns from the amber and red of sunset to the pink and lavender of twilight over the course of the evening. Cobblestone patterns projected onto the floor suggest an outdoor plaza setting, while swirling snowflake gobos and cloud patterns on the ceiling create a winter sky effect.

2010_Lighting_19

LD Systems provides lighting, sound and video over 20 days for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. One of the biggest challenges involves transforming the 75,000-seat Reliant Stadium into a concert space for a different performer every night, each with different requests for the look of the stage and lighting. A large video screen and close-up cameras create a feeling of intimacy in the large space. New Varilite VL3000 instruments are used, along with a rotating stage, moving lights and stationary PAR instruments.

The opening general session for the International Truck and Engine Corp. Parts and Service Expo in San Antonio features a sound and light show choreographed to a popular rock song, projected on an Atomic Pillow Wall. Total Event Resources uses a 20-by-66-foot screen for maximum impact and its screen-in-screen capabilities. Since the lighting portion of the show needed to be designed on-site, the event team worked all night to prepare for the 8 a.m. showing.

Although the building wasn't finished when Brite Ideas arrived to set up, the event team was able to light up the grand opening of the Henry and Renee Segerstrom Concert Hall at the Orange County Center for the Performing Arts with LED art. The event team uses a lighting concept never attempted before--LED video imagery on the walls and ceiling of the tent.

For a gala themed to Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, Fennelli Design Group turns a 20,000-square-foot gym into a pirate's cove, complete with a two-story pirate ship awash in water effects. The well-known pirate skull-and-crossbones flag--the "Jolly Roger"--moves around the room throughout the night thanks to a gobo projection. Custom-lit backdrops hide the unsightly running track on the second floor of the gym and add atmosphere.

The Madrid Arena Pavilion proves to be a spectacular space with the help of the Global Events team, who turns the large arena into a fairy kingdom with color spotlights, gobos and cracker smoke. Lights form leaves and vegetation when projected on walls. Aerial acrobats perform in sync with computer-controlled spotlights for an hour-long show.

In a massive 100-by-300-foot tent on the lawn of a private estate, Digital Lightning provides lighting for four different events over the course of a multi-day Indian wedding celebration. Highlights include the use of intelligent lighting to bounce light off the ceiling and light the pillow and rug areas on the floor for a morning prayer service, and a soft lavender ceiling wash and jewel-tone uplighting for the 700-guest ceremony luncheon.